When PR makes a real difference to business

Getting a great piece of press coverage for a client is fab – for many reasons. But often it’s hard to immediately see the business benefits. Sure the client may see a spike in web traffic or an increase in the number of orders, which is not to be sniffed at. But generally, PR has a cumulative effect which gathers momentum over time.

However there are occasions when the PR work you’ve done makes a real difference to a client, something that changes the shape of their business. And for Peekaboo, we’ve had two examples of that recently which we’re a tiny bit proud of and would like to share:

We entered Third Door into the Lloyds TSB/Heart FM local business competition last year. Entering awards is something we do a LOT of for clients and we have a pretty good hit rate for getting winning or finalist positions. On this occasion, Third Door won the prize for best local business in the London area. Their prize was two weeks of free radio advertising on Heart FM. Brilliant result!

But that wasn’t the best bit. The business changing bit came about because of the relationship it forged between Third Door and Lloyds TSB. In the current economic climate, it is very difficult to get small business loans. Lots of ‘talk to the hand’ going on. But as a result of winning the competition, Lloyds took note of Third Door, started a relationship and resulted in Third Door getting granted the business loan they needed to cover cash flow and fund expansion. Now that’s what we call a result.

Gander is a new distributor who was granted the rights to distribute the P’kolino range in the UK. With a limited budget, we set out to get as much coverage as possible for the range to drive demand for it, which would help attract more retailers, and to support the brand. Did each individual piece of coverage bring on a new retailer? Did a particular article generate sales? We can’t be sure. But what we do know, is that all the press coverage was sent back to the P’kolino team in the US. They were impressed and could see that Gander was committed to supporting their brand. As a result, Gander has just been granted exclusive distribution rights for the range in the UK. Another business altering moment!

Congrats to our clients on their respective successes! We’re so pleased we could be a part of it.